India’s shadow banks are benefiting from a drop in borrowing costs after government stimulus steps, but the troubled sector faces more challenges ahead as the economy reels from the pandemic, Bloomberg News reported. The lenders’ borrowing costs declined in June for a second straight month, according to a gauge that’s among four indicators compiled by Bloomberg to check on the health of the industry.

National Company Law Appellate Tribunal has upheld initiation of insolvency proceedings against real estate firm Housing Development and Infrastructure, rejecting company director Rakesh Wadhwan’s appeal against a bankruptcy court order, The Economic Times reported. A two-judge bench of NCLAT, headed by acting chairperson Justice Bansi Lal Bhat, on Monday said there was no need for interference with a National Company Law Tribunal order dated August 20, 2019.

India re-opened for business in June after months of lockdown but for thousands of small entrepreneurs in the town of Meerut, near Delhi, the blow has been devastating, Reuters reported. Businesses from textiles to sports goods and furniture are shuttered or working at a bare minimum, and cows roam streets that would be normally packed with workers and vehicles.

EY, the court-appointed supervisor for Ocean Tankers Pte Ltd (OTPL), has proposed two restructuring options to the shipping company’s owners and could meet with them as early as next week to discuss the plans, according to an EY report seen by Reuters, Reuters reported. The discussions are to ascertain whether the owners - Lim Oon Kuin, his son Evan Lim Chee Meng and daughter Lim Huey Ching, or the Lim family - are “willing to support any future restructuring of OTPL”, the report said. EY declined to comment.

The International Chamber of Commerce, a global trade union and civil society groups urged the Group of 20 major economies to extend and expand a freeze in debt service payments to help not just the poorest, but also middle-income countries, weather the coronavirus pandemic and its economic fallout, the International New York Times reported on a Reuters story. The ICC, International Trade Union Confederation, and Global Citizen, a group pushing to end extreme poverty by 2030, also called on G20 finance ministers, who will meet online on July 18, to take additional st

Minimalist lifestyle brand Muji’s U.S. subsidiary has filed for Chapter 11 bankruptcy protection, its Japanese owner Ryohin Keikaku Co said on Friday, joining the list of casualties from the coronavirus pandemic, Reuters reported. Ryohin Keikaku said Muji aims to close unprofitable stores and renegotiate rents in the United States, where its 18 stores have been closed since mid-March due to the pandemic. The outbreak has inflicted widespread financial pain on global retailers, leading many such as J. Crew Group and Brooks Brothers to file for bankruptcy protection.

Wigan Athletic’s former owner has said projected losses forced him to sell the club to the Hong Kong businessman who plunged it into administration just weeks after completing the purchase, the Financial Times reported. It is the first time Stanley Choi, who controls International Entertainment Corporation, a Hong Kong-listed hotel and casino operator, has spoken about his role in the sale process that preceded the club’s collapse, which has provoked fierce scrutiny of foreign ownership of English clubs.

As the crisis engulfing his business empire deepened, Bavaguthu Raghuram Shetty met with Bank of Baroda officials in mid-March to discuss the $250 million he and his firms owed, Reuters reported. The loans were granted on the strength of Shetty’s reputation as a billionaire and his businesses, in particular, NMC Health, the Middle East-focused hospital group he made his fortune from, according to court filings.

One of India’s biggest state-run banks said it had fallen victim to its third multimillion-dollar fraud in as many years, a stark illustration of the bad debts and weak defenses against misconduct that plague the country’s financial system, the Wall Street Journal reported. Punjab National Bank said yesterday that a customer, the ailing property lender Dewan Housing Finance Corp., had defrauded it of the equivalent of $491 million. In a separate statement, the bank said that its board had approved a plan to raise about $1.33 billion by selling shares and bonds.

Virgin Australia Holdings Ltd bondholders plan to propose to creditors a debt-to-equity swap as an alternative deal to the purchase by Bain Capital agreed by the company’s administrator, a lawyer for the bondholders said today, Reuters reported.